Dead Folks' blues

was late at night, close to midnight, near shift rotation. We were all wondering why he was still on the floor, why he didn’t go home.”

She stood up nervously and walked around the back of the chair. I followed her with my eyes, seeing something in her and in my mental portrait of Conrad that I’d never seen before.

“He had his back to the door, sitting in a conference room chair, his elbows propped on the armrests. I walked in, cleared my throat, trying to get his attention. He never moved. He just sat there, staring out the window over the campus. It was very dark. The campus is dimly lit at night. He was just staring.”

She gazed off herself for a moment, remembering what she’d seen that night. “I walked around in front of him,” she continued, “and stood there looking down at him. His eyes were locked in front of him, as if he were in a trance. And he was crying, tears just running down his face.”

Conrad Fletcher, I thought, crying!

“But he was real quiet,” she went on. “No sobbing, no sniffling. Not a sound. Just tears. Anyway, I knelt down in front of him and asked him if he was okay. I thought maybe he was having a stroke. He looked at me for a long time without answering. Then he reached out and took my hand. I flinched. I mean, I thought for a second that he was just up to his old tricks or something. But he was just looking for some kind of human contact, I think. He was very gentle, very sweet. He never said a word at first, just held my hand. Then he said ‘I’m sorry.’ And he shook his head and kind of brought himself to. I asked him about his patient, and he gave me some instructions and that was the end of it. For then …”

“What happened after that?”

“I rotated off nights. I didn’t see him for several days. Then I went back on late, and one night I saw him in the hall. We were alone. He walked up to me, started talking. I thought again maybe he was hitting on me, but to tell you the truth, I’m just not the kind of woman who gets hit on very often.”

Only because most men have no taste, I thought.

“He started talking to me, telling me about his marriage. Asking me about myself. Once he dropped his act, let go of all the yelling and screaming and power stuff, he could be quite vulnerable and very charming. He wasn’t a happy man. I actually felt sorry for him. That’s funny, isn’t it? Me feeling sorry for somebody. He asked me out for coffee when the shift ended. Coffee, mind you, not drinks. We went in separate cars, met at an all-night restaurant. He was very proper. Never got out of line. We talked a couple of hours. I asked him back here for a nightcap. He spent the night.”

She turned away from me, clearly embarrassed. This part, I could see, was tough for her. She paced back and forth for a few steps, then turned back to me.

“I don’t know why I did it. I’d never done anything like that before. And heaven knows, my judgment in men has never been brilliant. But no man had ever talked with me like that before. Lots of men have talked to me. He’s the only one I can ever recall talking with me. People didn’t see that in him, because he would never let them see it, but he could be very sweet. What made it easier for him with me is that I caught him alone that first night, in the doctor’s lounge, in a weak moment. It’s no secret that doctors are egomaniacs and very much into power issues. Conrad was no exception. But for some reason, he let go of that around me.”

To say that I’d never expected this was like saying Saddam Hussein never thought anybody’d kick his butt out of Kuwait. Either LeAnn Gwynn was one hell of a liar, or I’d finally found somebody who had some fondness for the late, great Doc Fletcher. Could it be that he was human?

“So were you getting serious?” I asked.

She raised her head and focused on some invisible point beyond me. “I honestly can’t say I know. Toward the end, we saw each other frequently. But I never asked him about his wife. Never mentioned anything permanent. I don’t even know if I was in love with him, or he with me. We talked, spent time together. And yes, Mr. Denton, we had one dynamite time together in bed.”

I couldn’t help but grin a bit. I’d asked for honesty from her; by God, I’d gotten it.

“Why do you think he kept coming around?”

“That’s easy. I don’t know what I gave him. Whatever it was, though, he wasn’t getting it at home.”

“Where were you the night he was killed?”

LeAnn Gwynn’s eyes widened as she looked at me. I saw fear in her.

“Who are you?”

“Ms. Gwynn, I told you, I’m-”

“No,” she said. “I remember you now. Damn it, I remember you now! You were in the hall that night. I thought I’d seen you before!”

“LeAnn, I-”

“Who are you?” she yelled. “You said you were the police!”

“No, I said I was a detective.”

My chest went into overdrive. Control of the situation was slipping away fast.

“You’re not with the police?”

“I’ve been hired by the family to-”

“She hired you! I don’t believe that lying bitch. She hired you to come after me, to pin Conrad’s murder on me.” Tears welled up in her eyes. Whatever tenderness she felt for Conrad was buried by her anger at me. Her fear was gone as well; now she was just plain mad. “You get out of here,” she ordered, stalking to the door. “And you tell her that if she thinks she can dump this on me, she’s in for a hell of a fight!”

LeAnn twisted the knob and yanked the door open before I had a chance to stop her. Not that I would have; I’d pressed my luck enough for one evening.

“Ms. Gwynn, I’m just trying to sort out what happened to Fletcher.”

She grabbed my arm, spun me around, and planted a hand in my back. Then she shoved.

I turned around out in the hallway. There was a look on LeAnn ‘s face I hadn’t seen before, a determined set to her jaw.

“You tell Rachel Fletcher I didn’t kill her husband,” she said. “I had to spank him a few times when he got naughty, but I didn’t kill him.”

Then she slammed the door in my face.

17

Interstate 65 heading back into town was as crowded as. Friday afternoon rush hour. Where in hell does all this traffic come from? I remember when this whole city shut down at ten. Then again, I remember when nobody had color television.

So somebody loved Conrad Fletcher. LeAnn Gwynn claimed she didn’t know whether she was in love with him or not, but I knew love when I saw it. Something told me I’d just met the only person on earth who was going to miss Connie.

It was late; I ought to go home and grab some sack time. But my conversation with LeAnn Gwynn had been a profoundly disturbing one. I’d learned as a newspaper reporter that the worst way to chase down a story is begin with a preconceived notion of how the story ought to be. But I also knew that everybody, no matter how hot a reporter or investigator, does. It’s as natural as looking outside, seeing dark clouds, and grabbing your umbrella. You see clouds; you figure it’s going to rain.

Only sometimes it doesn’t rain. Sometimes the sun breaks through and illuminates the landscape in ways you’ve never seen before. That’s how I felt now. The lay of the land was different.

Not that I knew what to do about it. But all my assumptions were called into question.

First, there was a side to Connie I hadn’t seen. No matter how he appeared to other people, at least one person saw him as gentle and vulnerable and-how did she put it?-charming.

Second, and this was the most subtle yet disturbing revelation: I’d assumed Conrad Fletcher was running around at night, sleeping with any nurse who’d have him, laying bets with Bubba Hayes, partying down like a real lech. Now it turned out that what he may have been doing was sitting alone in dark hospital rooms with silent tears